Talk Playstation 3 News

No body saw this coming but Atari has jumped right into the MMO market with big upcoming titles like Star Wars Online and Champions Online (which is coming to consoles near you in 2010) by acquiring Cryptic Studios.

The acquisition of Cryptic Studios brings to Infogrames an outstanding creative organisation, with a proven track-record of success in the fast-growing MMO category. “Cryptic’s success is founded on leading-edge technology and the vision of a seasoned executive management team.

The financial figures for this move are $ 26.7 million in cash and an maximum earn-out of $ 27.5 million to be made up of cash and Infogrames shares. Additionally the performance-related bonus could see as much as USD 20 million paid in cash or stock if Champions Online and Star Trek’s 2010-11 revenues outperform set undisclosed targets, payable in August 2010 and May 2011.

former Sony exec and currently CEO of Cryptic, John Needham said

We share a common vision with Atari and their leadership team. With our game development and online platform technology skills, we’re very excited about the opportunities that this unique combination with Atari creates. I am committed to helping Atari grow into a leading online game company and look forward to being part of the team

Source

Rumours of Cryptic planning to release their upcoming titles on consoles increases as Kotaku posted info about a job add on craigslist.

Though Cryptic is already deep into X360 programming, there was little news on how they did on PS3 programming. The job specifically states: PS3 Engine Programmer. We have developed a flexible, cutting edge MMO platform to power games like Champions and Star Trek Online. It runs on PC and XBOX 360 – now we want to support PS3 too.

Here is the joblisting:

PS3 Engine Programmer
We are currently looking for a full time PS3 Engine Programmer.

Are you interested in a challenge? We have developed a flexible, cutting edge MMO platform to power games like Champions and Star Trek Online. It runs on PC and XBOX 360 – now we want to support PS3 too. Are you an expert PS3 coder? Do you enjoy squeezing every last drop of performance and spare memory out of the system?

Every day you could be:

Exploiting SPU parallelism to get the maximum performance out of the system.
Extending existing systems to adapt to the ever-changing needs of a massively multiplayer game.
Collaborating with innovative art and design teams.
What you need to work here:

The ability to communicate clearly and concisely.
Extremely proficient in C programming and debugging. You must be a brilliant programmer.
Thorough understanding of the PS3 – SPUs, RSX, SPURS multi-threading, etc.
Love videogames – Console AND MMO.

Apply Online At: www.crypticstudios.com

So think you got the skills? Or even better, think this is true? Let us know.